ADDED: Based on the comments to this post, I'd say the problem wasn't so much that the analogy was edgy, but that it was too true. He said something that can't be said so openly. The setting wasn't really too open, which is why he said it, presumably, but the analogy was so vivid that it busted out into the internet-o-sphere.

Rosen's comment didn't imply an entire government organization was stringing up random companies to keep the others in line. I'm going to disagree; what Rosen said was awkward, but salvageable. Armendariz, I think his name is? Not salvageable. He made his organization look bad and criminal, that's worse than Rosen picking on stay at home moms.

Armendariz's crime was to give the Republicans a sound bite to use against the Dems in their "Obama's war on the economy" theme. He said it two years ago, so it's not a case of bad timing, it's just poor judgement.

You can't be a Fed employee & go around laying verbal time bombs for your bosses.

Hilary Rosen's higher up the food chain so she gets to keep her job. The "crucify" guy is just a foot soldier. He doesn't matter. Also, Hilary Rosen was following orders from even higher up the food chain so she's got the political equivalent of naked photos. Can't fire her. The "crucify" guy has, um, the satisfaction of knowing he spoke truth to video? Experience with crucifixion from both perspectives?

I don't think so. What Rosen said is just one more contribution to the tedious, dishonest "Woman's War" that has been going on for years. The EPA has real power, the power to ruin people, which it flaunts.

It's a government official - not a private citizen. This is what should happen when they screw up. And then, if what he said was true, not only should more heads roll but there should be some serious truth-telling, and straightening out of the situation, that follows. How many other careers, or businesses, have been wrecked by the EPA's desire to "crucify" them?

Fuck this guy and his (publicized) resignation - who has he/they hurt that we don't know about?

This is like the NewAge/religion thing (as usual, being a cultural phenomena) where people want to focus on what "good they've done" (or all the people who support, say, alternative medicine) and ignore the individuals who've faced the horrors of getting financially destroyed, raped, or killed, so that a priest, healer, or guru can continue. It's sick, reducing victims to an almost non-human status for someone's "beliefs."

Joe McCarthy had the right idea, and, I'm telling you - considering the way progressivism has set us back in time - he will be making a comeback in the very near future.

The Romans decimated their ranks to improve fighting morale, so this more measured and targeted reprisal is appropriate justice for the crucifixion utterer.

If you are inclined to see his point of view, he said it two years ago when "I won" was still fresh, so he really was not so far off the reservation. The seas were beginning to recede, the planet was beginning to heal, free health care for all, etc., so really, nailing up a few examples is not a big F-ing deal.

My bleak little heart both glees and feels disappointment at the same time so they cancel. Happy that particular individual is gone from that particular job, disappointed that it is not an actual crucifixion and he will be replaced with someone similar who does not use damaging analogies.

I think that the poster who pointed out that Hilary Rosen was further up the food chain was right. Besides, she isn't directly on the federal gravy train, and doesn't directly control a large chunk of our oil industry through blackmail and the like. I am surprised though that she was resurrected so quickly - would have expected her to lay low for a couple of weeks, at least. After all, Mark Fuhrman had to disappear for a couple of years before reappearing as a cable news talking head, after having blown the OJ trial, been shown to have been a racial bigot, and arguably violated OJ's Constitutional rights.

I doubt this wrecked his career. His views and aims are shared by many in Washington and amongst the environmental left, so I imagine he will find a comfortable place to recover as soon as the bus passes over.

The dude gave away the EPA's Roman Imperium style war planning against Americans which seeks to depopulate their rebel province in North America so that the world Governance Central Committee from Brussels ( near the Emperor's Summer Palace in Trier ) can re-take control over the energy strangulated area of poverty and the famines which make their designer plagues work quicker.

That is simply a replay of the Western Roman Empire's firstattempt at a take over of North America in the 1600s to 1760s era that culminated with the first actual World War fought over ownership of North America. We called that The French and Indian war here.

But that George Washington guy lead a rag tag Army of mostly Northern Ireland originated Scots Presbyterians and got away with blocking the power of the Pope ordained Kings over the former Roman Provinces of Britania , Gaul and Hispania who had fought that war among themselves calling it the Seven years War.

Now with Obama doing their inside work as a 5th columnist, they expect to reconquer their Rebel Province after a mere 230 year wait.

That EPA official has never really worked a day in his life. He's never really dealt with the kind of economic issues that a majority of the businesses in this country are facing in terms of how do they employ people, how do they get trained people, and why do they worry about the future.

Ann, this is why your conservative commentariat gives you grief. You appear to be incapable of understanding that the issue with this analogy is not the severity of the punishment - which would make it merely "edgy" - but the randomness. Armendariz is telling you, if you have the wit to listen, that justice is not his goal. Fear is.

His career ruined over a "slightly edgy analogy"? He's just making a sideways move, from midlevel bureaucrat to head of some Soros-funded attack group. In other words, he's just vanjonesing(tm).

How about going from a frontrunner in a primary campaign for POTUS to private life over one word - macaca - which the left discovered was sort of like the word for "monkey" in some obscure African language, and the "unbiased" "objective" "news" media ran with it?

Wrecked? He'll have his own entry in the book of martyrs and a regular gig on MSNBC before he finishes emptying his office. His fellow Romans love a hero who's not afraid to slaughter barbarians in the service of his gods.

What is to be solved by having Mr. Armendariz lose his job unless it's one more attempt to fool the rubes? His replacement will likely harbor the same sentiments that led to the crucifixion comment. President Obama's EPA is uniquely hostile to certain industries (fossil energy and petrochemicals to name two), and any appointed position is likely to be filled by an equally industry-hostile person. I am reminded of a comment made to a proponent of the Ford administration-created ERDA (thinking that because it was created and initially run by Republicans it would prove benign): One day you will be gone, but "That Horrible Thing" will still be here. One wishes the same advice had been given to President Nixon in 1970.

Sigvald said: "(You'd think Progressive types would realize that sounding like that is never good for their project, which requires government to be looked up to.Comments like that don't engender respect for the institution.)"

The line about "A verbal gaffe is when a liberal tells the truth in public" comes to mind. And I'd have to agree that 'slightly edgy' doesn't cover this, especially with a lot of the crap the EPA has been caught doing. And trying to do